Former City Councilor Shepard one of three candidates for 6th Middlesex seat

Three Framingham Democrats are running to represent the new minority-majority 6th Middlesex District in the State House. We are profiling each candidate, in alphabetical order. Today's candidate is former City Councilor Margareth Shepard. 

Framingham’s first minority-majority district — the newly formed 6th Middlesex — covers much of the city's Southside. The new district is free of incumbents. No Republicans are running for the seat, so whichever of three Democratic candidates wins the Sept. 6 primary election will be the only person on the ballot in the general election on Nov. 8.

One of those candidates is Margareth Shepard.

A little bit about Shepard

Shepard is a native of Brazil who came to the United States three decades ago. She’s a small business owner who’s been working to pay the bills while making time for politics.

Shepard served two terms as a city councilor in District 7; she was the first Brazilian American elected to a city council seat in the state.

She threw her hat into the ring for the 6th Middlesex district early this year.

Shepard said she saw politics as multifaceted: What you can dream about accomplishing and what you can achieve — and there can be a long road between an idea and the negotiations that lead to achievement. She said she’d prioritize getting to know other legislators and strengthening her relationships with those she already knows.

“The state reps, each one has their passion, so I want to get to know more about each one of them,” she said. “You have to be able to work with people who have different views than you and find common ground.”

Shepard is deaf and went through the process of making government meetings accessible when she was elected city councilor — and foresees needing to do that again on Beacon Hill, if elected.

“Government is not ready to have people with disabilities,” said Shepard. “They will have to make some accommodations. That will be the first challenge.”

She said she’s a big proponent of information, both for the voter and for other people considering running for office, especially those in marginalized communities.

“I’m an immigrant, I’m a single mother, I’m deaf — if I can do it, and be successful, they can do it,” she said. “It’s just a matter of if you want to, have the desire to, (and) have the dream of doing something bigger than yourself.”

Goals: Voter participation, contaminated site cleanup, educational equity, climate change

If elected, Shepard has four main goals — in no particular order.

She wants to work on increasing voter and resident participation on boards and commissions, something she worked on as a city councilor. She said she’ll accomplish this by working to increase voter registration and being present in every neighborhood.

“Although we are a minority-majority district, the majority of the voters skewed white,” Shepard said. “It's going to take a couple election cycles until people really understand what it means to be represented — one of my goals is to speed this up.”

She said she also wants to work on securing funds for the three contaminated sites on the city's Southside and keep residents informed about the work being done. She  plans to work on funding for education and will “fight to expand pre-K to become universal, not just for Framingham but for the entire state, because that will change, entirely, the playing field for young students.”

Shepard said she also wants to work on climate change, which she says is already affecting Framingham's Southside.

The second heat wave of the summer was in full swing when she sat down to speak with the Daily News. The Environmental Protection Agency has said that the state has warmed 2 degrees in the last 100 years, with heavier precipitation and hotter summers on the horizon.

She said she would work on speeding the transition to clean energy and investing in transportation, including for the MetroWest Regional Transit system.

Endorsements and past elections

Shepard has been endorsed by many organizations, including the Massachusetts Women’s Political Caucus, Massachusetts Nurses Association and the Massachusetts Transit Association. She’s also been endorsed by local legislators including state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, state Reps. Jack Patrick Lewis and Danillo Sena and Framingham City Councilors Tracey Bryant, Cesar Stewart-Morales and Adam Steiner, among others.

Shepard said the number of endorsements make her a bit emotional, both because of the show of support and what that support meant: years of making and building connections.

Endorsements “are important for people that don’t know me,” she said. “I thinking running should be a consequence, not a goal.”

In 2017, Shepard first ran for office for District 7 city councilor, defeating William Lynch, 587-454. She beat Lynch again in 2019 reelection effort, 331-227.

History of the district

Democrat Maria Robinson was the most recent legislator in the former 6th Middlesex District (it changed as part of the U.S. Census redistricting). She was nominated last fall by President Joe Biden to fill the role of an assistant secretary at the Department of Energy, but her nomination stalled and was withdrawn in June.

Robinson resigned from the State House in July and joined the Department of Energy as director of the DOE's Grid Deployment Office, according to her LinkedIn page. She no longer resides in the 6th Middlesex District.

More: A Framingham state representative is joining the Biden administration

With the redistricting, residents should check their polling locations on the city’s website.

The voter registration deadline for the Sept. 6 state primary is Aug. 27. Vote-by-mail applications for the primary are due Aug. 29.

The general election takes place on Nov. 8. The voter registration deadline for the general election is Oct. 29, and vote-by-mail applications are due Nov. 1.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Former Framingham City Councilor Shepard a candidate for 6th Middlesex